Publications

Employee voice at work

Johnstone Stewart

A Research Agenda for Work and Employment (2024) (2024)

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803929972.00011

Human resource management in recession : restructuring and alternatives to downsizing in times of crisis

Johnstone Stewart

Human Resource Management Journal Vol 34, pp. 138-157 (2024)

https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12512

Exporting is a team sport : the link between management training and performance in SMEs

Idris Bochra, Saridakis George, Georgellis Yannis, Lai Yanqing, Johnstone Stewart

International Journal of Manpower (2023)

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-03-2023-0150

Employee voice and partnership at work

Johnstone Stewart, Wilkinson Adrian

Research Handbook on Decent Work in a Post-Covid 19 World (2023) (2023)

Guest editorial : Work from home (WFH), employee productivity and wellbeing: lessons from COVID-19 and future implications

Saridakis George, Georgellis Yannis, Benson Vladena, Garcia Stephen, Johnstone Stewart, Lai Yanqing

Information Technology & People Vol 36, pp. 1757-1765 (2023)

https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-08-2023-993

Never 'one-size-fits-all' : Mick Marchington's unique voice on voice, from micro-level informality to macro-level turbulence

Budd John W, Johnstone Stewart, Lamare J Ryan

Human Resource Management Journal Vol 33, pp. 539-550 (2023)

https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12451

More publications

Teaching

I have experience of designing, delivering and managing programmes and modules concerned with the management of people and work at all levels. At Strathclyde I teach a range of undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA students. I am also the Editor of an Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management, which contains over 400 entries on core HR areas and key concepts.  A popular and comprehensive resource for students, a fully revised 2nd edition was released in February 2023. 

Research Interests

My research activity has focused on:

Employee voice and participation in both unionised and non-union contexts, and especially issues of labour management partnership, a debate to which I have contributed extensively for over 20 years. See for example:

Never one size fits all: Mick Marchington's unique voice on voice, from micro-level informality to macro-level turbulence Human Resource Management Journal

The potential of labour management partnership: a longitudinal case analysis, British Journal of Management.

Developing positive employment relations: international experiences of labour management partnership, Palgrave.

Finding a Voice at Work: New Perspectives on Employment Relations, Oxford University Press.

Employment restructuring in times of crisis, and in particular HRM responses to turbulence at the organisational level including the 2008 financial crisis and 2020 coronavirus pandemic.  See for example:

Comparative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on work and employment - Why industrial relations institutions matter, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society.

The Global Financial Crisis, Work and Employment Ten Years On,  Economic and Industrial Democracy

Downsizing, The Sage Handbook of Human Resource Management

Employment practices, laboour flexibility and the Great Recession: an automotive case study, Economic and Industrial Democracy

HRM in SMEs and the extent to which HRM challenges and practices are distinctive in smaller organisational settings.  See for example:

Training and performance in SMEs: Empirical evidence from large-scale data from the UK, Journal of Small Business Management

Are the responses of small firms different from large firms in times of recession? Journal of Business Venturing.

Human resource practices, employee attitudes and small firm performance, International Small Business Journal.

Professional Activities

Internal Examiner

Examiner

15/12/2023

Employee Voice

Speaker

7/11/2023

Employee Voice

Speaker

7/11/2023

Reconceptualising Employee Voice

Speaker

14/9/2023

The future of union management partnership

Speaker

3/9/2023

Involvement and Participation Association WIG Meeting

Participant

25/5/2023

More professional activities

Projects

Research Excellence Award: Sorry we missed you: The unheard voices of parcel delivery workers £101,388

Johnstone, Stewart (Principal Investigator) Briken, Kendra (Principal Investigator)

Freedom of association and worker representation are key tenets of international labour standards, the International Labour Organisation Decent Work Agenda, and UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth. Though precise definitions of ‘decent work’ vary, employee voice has long been recognised as a central dimension of fair work and good jobs (Wilkinson and Fay, 2011), while limited voice opportunities can have a detrimental impact on employee health and wellbeing (Johnstone and Ackers, 2015).

Yet while the value of employee voice is well-established, most research assumes a ‘standard’ employment relationship, where a job is continuous, full time and with a direct relationship between employer and employee (ILO, 2023). Less attention has been paid to employee voice in the ‘gig economy’, now estimated to employ up to 5 million people in the UK (Shenker, 2019). Though several studies have explored collective action and self-organisation in ride hailing and food delivery (e.g. Uber,Deliveroo), little is known about voice in a broader sense i.e. “the potential to influence organisational affairs through a variety of means including formal/informal and individual/collective opportunities” (Wilkinson et.al, 2022). This is important as gig workers typically have fewer employment rights and limited face to face interaction with managers/co-workers, and are often subject to intense technological surveillance and performance management.

The study will explore the working lives of parcel delivery workers - who frequently attract attention in the media because of exploitative working conditions (Guardian 2017, 2018, 2021) - but who whose voices remain unheard in the literature.

01-Oct-2024 - 01-Oct-2027

Research Excellence Award: Missing and marginalised voices: Exploring LGBT+ Networks as a Catalyst for Employee Voice and Intersectional Representation in the Workplace £101,388

Hadjisolomou, Tasos (Principal Investigator) Johnstone, Stewart (Co-investigator)

Employee voice has long been recognised as a central dimension of fairer workplaces and good jobs (Dundon et al. 2004; Wilkinson and Fay, 2011). However, scholars of employee voice overlooked workforce diversity, assuming employees are homogeneous and express themselves generically (Syed, 2021). An exception to the above is the emergence of research on ‘employee networks’ (Álvarez-Figueroa, 2023; Beaver, 2023), and their potential to offer a distinct ‘form’ of voice for the representation of marginalised organisational communities, and those who remain ‘invisible’ and/or silent. Yet while calls have been made for research which address the potential ‘missing voices’ of diverse workforce identities (Kouggianou, 2019), such studies remain limited. For example, the literature predominantly – and erroneously – makes heteronormative generalisations, perpetuating a heterosexist approach and neglecting the voice of diverse sexual identities (Corlett et al., 2022; Dahanayake et al., 2023). Few studies have explicitly examined the voice opportunities and experiences of sexual minority employees in mainstream employee voice debates; indeed LGBT+ employees remain missing in most theoretical and empirical conceptualisations of voice in the HRM and management literature (Bell et.al, 2011; Syed, 2021; McFadden and Crowley-Henry, 2018; McNulty et al., 2018). This PhD project is therefore an opportunity to ‘give voice’ to LGBT+ employees, including transgender and non-binary workers, currently underrepresented in the extant literature. It will also contribute to the modest literature concerning the potential of employee networks to amplify the voice of minority groups, as well as the theoretical and empirical laguna of LGBT+ voice and intersectionality in HRM more generally.

01-Oct-2024 - 01-Oct-2027

Effective Voice in Scottish Social Care Workplaces – A Mixed Methods Study

Scholarios, Dora (Principal Investigator) Briken, Kendra (Co-investigator) Cunningham, Ian (Co-investigator) Johnstone, Stewart (Co-investigator) McCarthy, Tony (Research Co-investigator) Nikolova, Marina (Researcher)

19-Aug-2024 - 18-Aug-2025

Research Excellence Award: Hearing the unheard: amplifying the voices of frontline essential workers £99,008

Johnstone, Stewart (Principal Investigator) Briken, Kendra (Principal Investigator)

Employee voice – defined as the ability to have a say at work and influence over workplace affairs – is a central dimension of a good job and fair work (Fairwork Convention, 2021, Norris-Green and Gifford, 2021; Taylor, 2017; Wilkinson et.al, 2021). For much of the twentieth century in Britain employee voice was synonymous with trade unions and collective bargaining. However, union representation is now unavailable in 90% private sector workplaces, and limited voice has a disproportionate impact on workers most vulnerable to exploitation. It also has the the potential to exacerbate intersectional inequalities among those already identified as having a constrained voice at work including women, the disabled, younger workers and ethnic minorities (Hodder and Lefteris, 2015; Wacjman 2002; William et.al, 2009). The pandemic highlighted societies dependency on frontline 'essential workers' defined by the Scottish Government as 'people who keep the country running'. However, many essential workers, including those in retail, logistics and the platformed mediated gig economy, are in low paid and insecure employment. These 'minimum wage heroes' (BBC, 2020) are also among the most likely to be treated unfairly but least likely to have access to traditional collective union voice mechanisms. This does not, however, mean such workers have no voice. Many employers have devised their own organisational voice channels, though concerns have been raised about the extent to which these can challenge management authority or promote employee interests. Workers also have alternative means of expressing themselves, including informal dialogue with peers and managers, social media, as well as support from other interest and advocacy groups. However, little is known about whether such channels are sufficient in empowering vulnerable frontline workers, promoting good jobs or promulgating fair work. Assessing this issue is the aim of the project.

01-Oct-2022 - 01-Oct-2025

Amplifying Employee Voice and Hearing the Unheard: A Multidisciplinary Study of Contemporary Working Lives in Deindustrialised Communities

Johnstone, Stewart (Principal Investigator) Briken, Kendra (Co-investigator) Cunningham, Ian (Co-investigator) Hadjisolomou, Tasos (Co-investigator) McCarthy, Tony (Co-investigator) McIntyre, Stuart (Co-investigator) Scholarios, Dora (Co-investigator) Taylor, Philip (Co-investigator)

01-Oct-2022 - 30-Sep-2025

‘Reward to Retain’ Evaluating the impact of ENABLE and UNISONS’s agreement to improve recruitment and retention through fair work

Cunningham, Ian (Principal Investigator) Baluch, Alina (Co-investigator) Jendro, Eva (Co-investigator) Scholarios, Dora (Co-investigator) Johnstone, Stewart (Co-investigator) James, Philip (Co-investigator)

Research undertaken in Enable explored issues around recruitment, retention reward and retention in the organisation. The research proposal aimed to address the following objectives: 1. Why staff join and remain within ENABLE in light of the agreement with UNISON; 2. What changes the agreement has made to the organisation’s attraction and selection strategies; 3. How these changes have impacted on service quality; and 4. How the values of Fair Work can be progressed in future relations between ENABLE and UNISON.

01-Jan-2021 - 31-Aug-2021

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